Plenty still alive in the chase for the Dirty 30 title

The 2022 season is starting to head towards the home stretch and a lot of things are starting to become clearer around the country. The Mississippi ranks have one week remaining before the playoffs while the West Coast has three weeks remaining.

The top three teams in the rankings all held serve this weekend with impressive wins. Top-ranked Hutchinson blasted Garden City, 65-7, as Dylan Laible threw for three scores for the Blue Dragons. No. 2 Iowa Western scored an impressive 33-14 victory over a tough Butler squad as Aiden Niedens threw for three touchdowns. No. 3 Riverside City survived a war against No. 7 Mt. San Antonio when they nipped the Mounties in three overtimes, 35-33.

Down in Mississippi the playoffs are starting to take shape. No. 4 Northwest and No. 5 Jones remained undefeated. Northwest wrapped up the MACCC North Division and travels to No. 21 Northeast this Thursday in the regular season finale. Jones has a one game lead over No. 24 Gulf Coast and the two teams will meet this Thursday to decide the South Division champion. No. 23 East Mississippi is the odds-on favorite to capture the No. 2 seed from the North Division and will face winless Delta on Thursday. A win by Northeast against Northwest, however, could upset the apple cart.

The Minnesota ranks moved into the conference semifinals and No. 45 North Dakota State College of Science will host Central Lakes on Sunday while No. 40 Minnesota State will host Rochester.

The Northern California ranks had a stunner on Friday night when Diablo Valley shocked previous No. 4 San Mateo, 23-21. The Vikings moved up to No. 13 in the rankings while San Mateo dropped to No. 14. In the annual Towne v City matchup between Laney and San Francisco, Laney stormed back to defeat the defending national champions, 31-20. Laney moved on to the big board at No. 29 with the win. The top-ranked team from the Northern California ranks is No. 9 Sierra who improved to 6-1 after blowing out Shasta, 49-14. It is the highest rankings for the Wolverines in Dirty 30 history and they get tough battles against No. 34 Butte and No. 31 American River in the coming weeks.

No. 6 Trinity Valley and No. 12 New Mexico Military will face one another this weekend in what will have a huge impact on the Southwest Junior College Football Conference playoffs. TVCC is the lone undefeated team in league play while NMMI and No. 30 Tyler both have one loss. A win by Trinity Valley could make things clear cut, but a loss could provide a three-way tie for first place with one week remaining. Tyler plays No. 20 Kilgore in another big matchup on Saturday. Another still in the mix for the playoffs is No. 25 Navarro, who hosts Cisco.

Here is the rest of the JCGridiron Dirty 30 Rankings. Just a reminder, the Dirty 30 Rankings do not include games against club teams, prep schools, non-CCCAA, non-NJCAA or non-HJCAC programs in its rankings/records.